Applique Your Heart Away

Kirigami, folding and cutting paper into decorative designs has always been something I've enjoyed. Snowflakes and paper doll chains are two of the most widely know examples. I decided to step my paper doll chain up a notch, and put it on a t shirt.



Materials:
- a t shirt, mine came from the 50% off clearance rack at Target
- 1/4 yd fabric to make your dolls from, mine is white knit
-about 1/4 yd of Fusi-knit
-a stencil, you can use cardboard, paper, plastic. I don't recommend paper because it's harder to trace.
-washable marker
-thread
-scissors
-pins


Directions:
1. Create your paper doll stencil. Fabric does not stay folded as well as paper does, making it more difficult to fold and cut out. I used a quilters' template to trace my paperdoll chain, then cut it out. The template is gridded, making it a little easier to

2. Iron the fusi-knit onto your "people fabric" The fusi-knit will keep your people from getting distorted while tracing, cutting and stitching them down. small pieces of knit are not always the easiest to work with, this will help tremendously.

3. Trace the pattern onto the fabric. I recommend tracing onto the side with the fusi-knit, but that's because I kind it easier.



4. Cut the people out.





5. Pin the people onto your shirt. It might be easier to accomplish this if you put something between the layers of the shirt. A piece of cardboard works well. You'll want to use plenty of pins.



6. Sew the people onto the shirt. You can be creative and use contrasting thread or keep everything the same colors, that's up to you. When sewing, I do recommend setting your machine to start and end with the needle in the fabric. Also, sew slow!



7. After everything is stitched in place, trim your threads.

Congratulations, you now have a paper doll chain shirt.